white feather

A sign of cowardice.

Idiom:

show the white feather

To act like a coward.

[From the belief that a gamecock with a white feather in its tail was a poor fighter.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

white feather

1. a symbol or mark of cowardice

2. show the white feather to act in a cowardly manner

[from the belief that a white feather in a gamecock's tail was a sign of a poor fighter]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun

white feather - a symbol of cowardice

symbolic representation, symbolisation, symbolization, symbol - something visible that by association or convention represents something else that is invisible; "the eagle is a symbol of the United States"

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

The note was written on a broad, white feather from a stork's wing, and it said:

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The dress was a sombre grayish beige, untrimmed and unbraided, and she wore a small turban of the same dull hue, relieved only by a suspicion of white feather in the side.

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Sara Stanley wore a smart new travelling suit and a blue felt hat with a white feather. She looked so horribly grown up in it that we felt as if she were lost to us already.

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One must have an ostrich plume; another, a white feather with a red end; a third, a bunch of cock's tails.

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At the end of the jetty, his clothes richly laced with gold, glittering, as was customary with him, with diamonds and precious stones, his hat ornamented with a white feather which drooped upon his shoulder, Buckingham was seen surrounded by a staff almost as brilliant as himself.

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Sophia was to be a shepherdess, with as many sheep as the painter could put in for nothing; and Moses was to be dressed out with a hat and white feather.

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She had added three rows of white braid and large white pearl buttons to her gray jacket, in order to make it a little more "dressy." Her gray felt hat had a white feather on it, and a white tissue veil with large black dots made her delicate skin look brilliant.

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Each man wore a close fitting cap of black, decked with a curling white feather. For arms, they carried simply a stout bow, a sheaf of new arrows, and a short hunting-knife.

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The quilt of a high, white feather bed was just visible behind a screen.

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The General on hearing of this further intended outrage, showed the white feather.

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If you had shown the white feather, and let him pull your nose, he'd have got it into the paper; if you had sworn the peace against him, it would have been in the paper too, and he'd have been just as much talked about as you--don't you see?'

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A solitary white feather uprose from his kinky, glossy, black hair.

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